Web pages are important means for communication and collaboration for enterprises. An enterprise may use web pages to communicate with its employees, with the public, with its partners, and with other groups. An enterprise may organize web pages targeted to different audiences into groups of web pages known as “websites”. For instance, an enterprise may organize a set of web pages targeted to its employees into an intranet website. Furthermore, in this instance, the enterprise may organize a set of web pages targeted to the public into an Internet website.
In order to provide web pages, an enterprise may establish its own information technology infrastructure. Establishing an information technology infrastructure may require the purchase of one or more servers that provide the web pages and may require the purchase of bandwidth from a network access provider. In addition, the enterprise may be required to hire employees to administer the information technology infrastructure.
Expenses associated with establishing and maintaining the information technology infrastructure may be considerable. For instance, high-end servers may cost several thousand dollars each. Furthermore, the salary of a network administrator hired to configure and maintain the information technology infrastructure may be several thousand dollars per month.
In order to reduce expenses associated with establishing and maintaining its own information technology infrastructure, an enterprise may enter a subscription agreement with an operator of a data center. A data center is a collection of servers and other network appliances that operate to perform network services on behalf of one or more subscribers. The subscription agreement may specify that, in exchange for a periodic fee, the operator of the data center will provide a web hosting service that hosts a website of the enterprise.
The operator of the data center may make many such subscription agreements with many different enterprises, organizations, or individuals. Enterprises, organizations, and individuals that enter subscription agreements with an operator of a data center for network services are referred to as “subscribers” or “tenants.”
In some circumstances, it is not necessary for a data center to include a server that is exclusively dedicated to providing web hosting services on behalf of a single subscriber. For example, a website of a first subscriber may not receive enough hits from client devices to justify the expense of maintaining a separate server to operate a web hosting service that exclusively hosts the website of the first subscriber. In such circumstances, a single server in the data center may provide a shared web hosting service that hosts the websites of a plurality of subscribers. When a single server provides a shared web hosting service that hosts the websites of a plurality of subscribers, the data center may endeavor to ensure that it appears to each of the subscribers that the data center has provided a dedicated server that provides a web hosting service that exclusively hosts the subscribers' individual websites. In other words, the data center tries not to give any indication to a subscriber that a server that provides the web hosting service for the subscriber is also providing web hosting services for other subscribers.
In some instances, a subscriber of a data center may use the data center to host several separate websites. For instance, a subscriber may operate a plurality of different e-commerce enterprises, each of which has its own website. In another example, a subscriber may operate an intranet site that is accessible to employees of the subscriber and an extranet website that is accessible to a group of employees of the subscriber and a group of employees of a partner enterprise.